Current location in this text. Enter a Perseus citation to go to another section or work. Full search
options are on the right side and top of the page.

CHAP. 35.—LOCUSTS.

Those insects which have feet, move sideways. Some of
them have the hind feet longer than the fore ones, and curving
outwards, the locust, for example.

(29.) These creatures lay their eggs in large masses, in the
autumn, thrusting the end of the tail into holes which they
form in the ground. These eggs remain underground
throughout the winter, and in the ensuing year, at the close
of spring, small locusts issue from them, of a black colour, and
crawling along without legs1 and wings. Hence it is that a
wet spring destroys their eggs, while, if it is dry, they multiply in great abundance. Some persons maintain that they
breed twice a year, and die the same number of times; that
they bring forth at the rising2 of the Vergiliæ, and die at
the rising of the Dog-star,3 after which others spring up in
their places: according to some, it is at the setting4 of
Arcturus that the second litter is produced. That the mothers
die the moment they have brought forth, is a well-known fact,
for a little worm immediately grows about the throat, which
chokes them: at the same time, too, the males perish as well.
This insect, which thus dies through a cause apparently so
trifling, is able to kill a serpent by itself, when it pleases, by
seizing its jaws with its teeth.5 Locusts are only produced in
champaign places, that are full of chinks and crannies. In
India, it is said that they attain the length of three6 feet, and
that the people dry the legs and thighs, and use them for saws.
There is another mode, also, in which these creatures perish;
the winds carry them off in vast swarms, upon which they fall
into the sea or standing waters, and not, as the ancients supposed, because their wings have been drenched by the dampness of the night. The same authors have also stated, that
they are unable to fly during the night, in consequence of the
cold, being ignorant of the fact, that they travel over lengthened
tracts of sea for many days together, a thing the more to be wondered at, as they have to endure hunger all the time as well, for
this it is which causes them to be thus seeking pastures in other
lands. This is looked upon as a plague7 inflicted by the anger
of the gods; for as they fly they appear to be larger than they
really are, while they make such a loud noise with their wings,
that they might be readily supposed to be winged creatures of
quite another species. Their numbers, too, are so vast, that they
quite darken the sun; while the people below are anxiously
following them with the eye, to see if they are about to make
a descent, and so cover their lands. After all, they have
the requisite energies for their flight; and, as though it had
been but a trifling matter to pass over the seas, they cross immense tracts of country, and cover them in clouds which bode
destruction to the harvests. Scorching numerous objects by
their very contact, they eat away everything with their teeth,
the very doors of the houses even.

Those from Africa are the ones which chiefly devastate
Italy; and more than once the Roman people have been obliged
to have recourse to the Sibylline Books, to learn what remedies
to employ under their existing apprehensions of impending
famine. In the territory of Cyrenaica8 there is a law, which
even compels the people to make war, three times a year,
against the locusts, first, by crushing their eggs, next by killing the young, and last of all by killing those of full growth;
and he who fails to do so, incurs the penalty of being treated
as a deserter. In the island of Lemnos also, there is a certain
measure fixed by law, which each individual is bound to fill
with locusts which he has killed, and then bring it to the
magistrates. It is for this reason, too, that they pay such respect
to the jack-daw, which flies to meet the locusts, and kills them
in great numbers. In Syria, also, the people are placed under
martial law, and compelled to kill them: in so many countries
does this dreadful pest prevail. The Parthians look upon
them as a choice food,9 and the grasshopper as well. The voice
of the locust appears to proceed from the back part of the head.
It is generally believed that in this place, where the shoulders
join on to the body, they have, as it were, a kind of teeth, and
that it is by grinding these against each other that they produce the harsh noise which they make. It is more especially
about the two equinoxes that they are to be heard, in the
same way that we hear the chirrup of the grasshopper about
the summer solstice. The coupling of locusts is similar to
that of all other insects that couple, the female supporting
the male, and turning back the extremity of the tail towards
him; it is only after a considerable time that they separate.
In all these kinds of insects the male is of smaller size than
the female.

An XML version of this text is available for download,
with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted
changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.